Quick! Read This Book Before It's Banned.
Photos
The Lehigh Valley has been named to another national list – one we at the Library would prefer not to be on. The list is titled Books Challenged or Banned in 2010-2011. It’s one of the American Library Association’s resources for Banned Books Week.
The 2010 challenge of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed put us on the list. The Easton Area School District retained the book despite a parent’s claim that it promotes “economic fallacies” and socialist ideas as well as advocating the use of illegal drugs and belittling Christians.
Nickel and Dimed didn’t fare as well in the Bedford (NH) School District where it was removed from the required Personal Finance course after two parents complained about the “book’s profanity, offensive references to Christianity, and biased portrayal of capitalism.
Recent book challenges in the East Penn School District insure our inclusion on the next list. Under review are Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. Both are challenged for objectionable sexual content, and both are on summer reading lists, not required reading.
A glance at the 2010-2011 list reveals several titles that have been taught in high schools for decades. The perennially challenged The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was retained in a Martin County, Florida school district despite a parent’s concern about “inappropriate language.” Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World was challenged at schools in Glen Burnie, Maryland, and Seattle, Washington, for a “high volume of racially offensive derogatory language and misinformation on Native Americans” among other complaints.
Challenged in the Republic, Missouri, schools was Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five because it is “soft pornography” and “glorifies drinking, cursing, and premarital sex.”
Sexual content and homosexual themes were the complaints that led to the first recorded challenge (2010) of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl in a Virginia public school.
Reading lists often include recent titles that teachers hope will interest reluctant readers. Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants was removed from an elective course at the Bedford (NH) School District after a parent complained about the novel’s sexual content.
Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was removed from a summer reading program in Michigan because of its “foul language.”
Two high schools in Florida banned Augustin Burroughs’ Running with Scissors for “extremely inappropriate content” including “underage drinking and smoking, child molesters, and total lack of negative consequences throughout the book.” Profanity, sex, and descriptions of violence were the reasons for challenging Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in Washington.
Banned Books Week 2011 is the thirtieth annual celebration of the freedom to read. Most challenges occur in schools and are usually made by parents who want to protect their children.
While we can understand their motivation, individuals shouldn’t call on government or public agencies to restrict everyone’s choices. Most school districts will accommodate such concerns with an individualized assignment and without impacting other readers’ access to materials.
Interested in the complete list of books challenged in the last two years? ALA can’t give you that because surveys indicate that “approximately 85 percent of the challenges to library materials receive no media attention and remain unreported.” However, you can find Books Challenged or Banned in 2010-2011 along with Banned and Challenged Classics and lists by decade at http://tinyurl.com/6q5ztmw.
BethTwp
7:50 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Banned books in schools? YES. Especially when our society wonders why teens are so sexually active. They read it, see it and think it's ok. AND...Nickel and Dimed is written by a self proclaimed socialist who downs Christianity and Capitalism. Not what this country was founded on.
ron
10:54 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Oh so thats why some teens are sexually active, all these years i have been blaming it on puberty. lol
New World Orphan
6:33 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
The Bible for god sakes is banned in certain country's DERPPP!!!! Also the bible says "go forth and multiple" -Genesis 1:1-31 DERPPPPPP!!!! so according to the bibles logic teens are doing the right thing... its called FREE WILL!!! so what else do you want to cram down others throats. If we were so narrow minded like you. We never would have built the wheel and the Neanderthal's would have never went extinct.. O wait they didn't there called Religious Nuts now!
Rosemary B
8:41 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
There is no way that teens having sex is a good thing for them physically or emotionally. It should not be promoted in literature that they are required to read in school. Some people in this world have higher standards then common alley dogs and believe we can use our free will to control our selves from behavior that is not good for us. And please stop insulting people that you do not understand.
Anonymous
7:50 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Guess what book is illegal in 53 countries, restricted in 40 and hostile if found you have one page to death in 13 countries? The most popular book of all time:the most controversial and the most banned book throughout parts of the world is the Holy Bible. In North Korea & several other countries you can be imprisoned for LIFE for having 1 page of the Bible. Check out "Voice of the Martyrs" for stories of people killed. There are more original manuscripts of the Bible than any of the other book we have...yet there is no discussion about it most schools. Do we talk about the 500 eye witness account who risked their life to say they had seen the risen Christ? How about Simon Greenleaf, founder of Harvard Law school and the world's leading authority on evidence in his day found upon deep serious investigation of the Holy Bible for it to be true....historically and regarding the resurrection of Christ.
I know this seems off topic...but if we are going to get upset about something, lets get upset about how the Bible is completely ignored by the public school system. It was written over a period of 1500 yrs and written by 40 different people with different styles from different countries....and yet it fits PERFECTLY together. That is special in itself. Yet...it is ignored. Eastern philosophy is a religion and yet school embrace & have readings from it. Witchcraft is read and humanism is embraced.
Ronnie DelBacco
9:14 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
@Anonymous 7:50,
Right on!
And no one is saying that public schools should incorporate the Bible into public school reading lists either. The challenges are simply to remove objectionable materials. With the millions of options out there for reading materials, there is NO excuse for public schools to insist on selections which include descriptive sexual content, explicit and casual drug use, the selling of political propaganda, and so on.
Have it in the public libraries, fine. But keep it out of the schools.
One more thing for Mrs. Horvath to consider, "Suppose the voting public petitions the elected school directors to remove all tax payer funding for the library. Since our tax dollars are collected for "public education" and the school district in part funds the library, we should have just as much say in how those dollars are spent and what is being promoted with that money."
Be careful what you ask for. Perhaps we 'well intentioned' tax payers should now explore this avenue.
New World Orphan
6:35 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Hmm someone deserves a banana sticker for doing their research
Rosemary B
8:11 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
"While we can understand their motivation, individuals shouldn’t call on government or public agencies to restrict everyone’s choices. Most school districts will accommodate such concerns with an individualized assignment and without impacting other readers’ access to materials."
Amusing. You do not want to restrict everyone's choices in reading material yet you have no problem restricting parents choices on where to send their kids to school. We need more school choice in this country. Then if you do not like the required reading of one school you could send your child to another school. School loses enough kids they will change their reading list!
Rob Hamill
4:23 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Anonymous liberal journalists writing incendiary headlines that confirm their categorizations so that they can dismiss objectors and not challenge politically correct "liberal" philosophies again
Tom Coombe
4:28 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Rob, this is a blog post. It's opinion, not journalism. And it's not anonymous. Mary Ann's name is at the top.
careless fills
4:33 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Is the writer expressing the position of the Easton Library? "The Lehigh Valley has been named to another national list – one we at the Library would prefer not to be on."
Rob Hamill
8:52 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
It's a categorization of a local concern, something that causes both sides of the argument to stop thinking and start reacting.
Easton Area Public Library
5:07 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Library Bill of Rights
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries that make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; Jan 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed Jan 23, 1996.
careless fills
10:32 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
There;s a big difference between banning a book from a library or prohibitting book stores from selling a title compared to a teacher or school giving an assignment to pick a book from a short list of titles where several of the books and clearly objectionable to many.